HISTORY OF THE PSYCHOHOLICS
A Comprehensive historic documentation of the Psychoholics,
past and present.
PART I
PART II   PART III

The Psychoholics story began many years ago. Tim Mrak and Charlie George first met in high school around 1982. They rode the short bus and attended the same school for disciplinary problem kids together. They both had limited guitar knowledge, with Charlie being a bit more adept. He showed Tim a few more chords and in particular, "power chords." Tim thought they didn't have the talent to be a professional musicians. After they were introduced him to the rudimentary song writing of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones, they realized what they might lack in technical proficiency, they could make up for with creativity and heart. They began writing songs together and separately.

They formed The Boages as a duo and played many talent shows and lunch time performances at school. After high school, they played a few gigs at some early 80's punk venues like Raw Power and Third Wave, occasionally performing as Black Poop. That's not to mention the impromptu performances on the hood of Charlie's car in parking lots.



Rewind further to 1981, when Tim was walking by an apartment complex near his parent's old house. He was sixteen at the time. Just your typical white boy, long-haired, Led Zeppelin loving, rocker kid. There were legions of them back then. That's why there was such a thing called the Kiss Army. NOT THAT THEY WERE MEMBERS.

As he was walking along in the old 'hood, he happened upon an older cat with a beard setting up a beautiful Ludwig drumset out in the parking lot of the apartment complex, like he was letting it out for a little sun.

He went up to him and said "Play Moby Dick" like that was some kind of test of his ability.

Boop bap bappitty boom boom bap tinga-tinga-ting crash!

Fuckin' great. No guitars, no bass, no band, just a guy and a drumset in the middle of a parking lot. Needless to say, Tim was impressed. He eventually got to know Vince and his Dad Nick who worked there at the apartment complex as maintenance men. The two of them lived right above the maintenance storeroom where Charlie and Tim used to set up their crappy little band equipment and play gawd-awful amateurish versions of Twist and Shout, Louie Louie and Wild Thing.

Even if they were horrible, they were very serious about making said noise, to the point that they literally cut a hole in Vince's bedroom floor, to gain access to the downstairs storeroom, day and night. Hence the Boage-Hole was born.

There were many jam-box recordings done in this little cave of theirs and one of them still exists of Nick unplugging them and yelling at Vince that enough is enough.

"This damn racket has been goin on ALL day and ALL night.!!! Goddammit, 'Nuff Snuff!!"
On the recording someone has the audacity to say "rock-n-roll" and without missing a beat, Nick raises his voice and says
"Rock-n-roll!?!? I'll ROCK YER NUTS WITH MY FIST AND ROLL YOUR ASS OUT THE DOOR MISTER. GODAMMIT 'NUFF'S S'NUFF!!!!!"

They will always be grateful to Nick for putting up with them, while they learned their craft. Back then, Charlie and Tim were trying to keep The Boages alive. They had very little equipment and even less skill. They were serious underdogs compared to the other bands that Vince was in.

He was always being laughed at by his other bandmates for playing with the Boages. His answer to that was
"Hey, at least they got the balls to get up there in front of people and do it."

Tim moved away from and then back to San Antonio several times during the 80's, forming the Moby Dickheads in Phoenix and a S.A. heavy metal band known as Hardenfäst. Charlie formed a short-lived trio with Claude Hughes called the Bloody Sex Beatles.

By 1990 and 91, Charlie and Tim had seen each other go through a lot of shit. Failed relationships, failed marriages, failed bands, jobs, cars, pets, deals, transactions and their lives just generally. Lives that were steeped in failure. They started jamming with Vince Pretter and Wes Ritchey, calling themselves Psychic Underwear, the Retardles, or Schizoid Embolism. Needless to say, they were stetting themselves up for even more faded dreams and dashed hopes.

Somewhere around this time, they decided on the creation of "a new band."
Tim made the brash declaration, that he would lead this brave new group of musicians to boundless glories and royalties galore, a virtual cornucopia of new age cool shit, a plethora of excesses and Bacchanalian delights.

They didn't actually have the name at first, but it was like it was already on the tips of our tongues. They had been playing with the PSY prefix already with Psychic Underwear. When two friends were talking (Dawni and Mallory) they had been arguing with each other during a drinking binge.

"You're fucked up!"
"You're psycho!"
"You're psycho-alchoholic."
"Dude,...you're PSYCHOHOLIC!!!!!"

"Hey Charlie, there's a name for your stupid band. The Psychoholics™". Fuckin' A. It stuck.

Tim knew it was right when it fell out of Charlie's mouth. Psychoholics™.

OK, they had a name for the band, now all they needed was...a direction, some songs, equipment, talent, a manager, a recording contract, van to haul shit, inspiration, groupies and a clue to exactly what the fuck they were trying to do here. They had nada.

"Charlie, you are gonna be the bass player."
"But I don't wanna be the bass player"
"Goddammit Charlie, we need you to be the bass player"
"but I don't wanna play bass, I wanna play guitar and sing"
"I'm the singer/guitar player, Goddammit."

The next day he calls me up and says. "OK Goddammit, I'll play bass in your fucked up band....you little asshole..."

The first song we did was My Way ala Sid Vicious. The Psychoholics were born.

PART II   PART III